
Glass 

Book >H^ fv 



POEMS 



POEMS 

BY LEONARD SHOOBRIDGE 



LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMX 






><r. 



^/ 



Turnbull b' Spears, Printers, Edinburgh 



^ 
i 



CONTENTS 



I 

PAGE 

MORNING 3 

" GUESSED IN YOUR LOOK " 4 
"once as a bird IN THE HAND SOFT AND NEAR" 5 

BEFORE AND AFTER 6 

GONE ABOVE TO HIS PLACE 8 

"he POURED THE VITAL ROSEATE WINE" lO 

" THE DREAM WAS OF A GOLDEN STAR " II 

" HE CALLED THE BREEZES OF THE SOUTH " 12 

"we LINGERED ON THE STAIRS TO SEE" 1 3 

" THE PATHOS OF THE PASSING YEAR " 14 

PARTED 1 5 

LAST ECHOES 1 6 

A THOUGHT 1 7 
"I KNOW THE WEALTH THAT DECKS THE SHRINE" 18 
" ALL LIVES BY DEATH. SO BEATS EACH HEART" I9 

" IT IS THE DEEP RELENTLESS STREAM " 20 

"LONG YEARS AGO" > 21 

A HOUSE UNINHABITED 23 

SOLITUDINES 24 

" THE SPIRIT WANDERS IN THE HILLS " 25 

IN THE OPEN 26 

"UCCELLI CHE SONO IN MARE" 27 

" WAS IT OURS THAT DISTANT PAIN ? " 29 

AT NIGHT 30 

LECTORI SALVE 3 1 
V 



CONTENTS 
II 



PAGE 



" HOMES OF THE SOUL " 35 

FEBRUARY ^3,^ 

TO A PICTURE 38 

UNA QUIDEM EST CONSOLATIO 39 

ANIMULA 40 

EARLY MARCH 4 1 

THE RIFT IN THE LUTE 42 

" YOU ARE NOT SHE " 44 

RAIN 45 

" I LOVE TO TAKE YOUR HAND AND GO " 46 

" THE HOUSE IS JUST AS STATELY ; FAIR " 48 
" THE DAY WAS PERFECT, AND THE PERFECT BLUE " 49 

ECHOES 51 

SOUVENIR d'un ami 53 

SEPTEMBER 54 

"the autumn DIES ; THE HAUNTING SNOW " 55 

" THUS I WOULD HAVE IT. YOU SHOULD BE" 56 

NOVEMBER 57 

" THE TWILIGHT'S GRADUAL DEEPENING " 58 

DECEMBER 59 

" A LILT OF WORDS IS IN THE EAR " 61 

III 

IN THE BREEZE 65 

" MIRROR HIGH SET AND SILENT AS A STAR " 66 

"you RAISE A CHILD UP FOR A WHILE" 67 

EVENING RAIN 68 

IN THE VINEYARDS ^Q 

HER LOVE 71 

THE JUDGE 72 

TWENTY TO THIRTY 74 

PRESENTIMENT 76 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

" boy's love ! UNCONSCIOUS SPEAKING OF A 

rhyme" 'J'] 

MOSAIC 78 

BY THE WINDOW 80 

BETWEEN THE DANCES 81 
"COLD WORDS YOU SPOKE, SOME CHANCE YOU 

FAILED " 82 

A FACE 83 

PALE GOLD 84 

"WE PARTED AND I TOOK MY FILL" 85 

AT PALERMO 87 

IN A BALL-ROOM 89 

" ALONE ? — WITHIN MY FINGERS SEEM " 91 

SPRING 92 

TRIVIA 93 

" WE TWO HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER " 94 

ALONE 95 

AT BAYREUTH 97 

THE MOSLEM'S TOMB 99 

MURANO lOI 

HEIMWEH 102 

A MIRROR 103 

BY THE SHORE I04 



IV 

VISHNU 107 

BY THE BULWARKS lOg 

" WE HAVE TWO MOODS, TWO VISIONS, IF WE 

WILL" no 

IN THE PARTHENON III 

IN THE LUXEMBOURG 112 
"to FRETFUL MAN ONE SINGLE SPEECH HAVE 

ALL" 113 

"SOME WEEP FOR COMMON THINGS" II4 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE PLANTATION II5 

HUMAYOUN 1 16 

"LET ME PASS IN AND BY YOUR SIDE" Il8 

KWANNON 119 

"IN THAT A SHADOW SEEMED TO PASS" 121 

COGNITIO 122 

AT CAIRO 123 

PROCESSIONAL 1 24 

AEOLIAN 126 

" THE opal's world OF TENDER GREYS " 1 27 

LONDON, 1883 128 
" O MAY THE GODS FORGIVE US, THAT WE PRIZE" 1 29 

MADRIGAL I30 

A POET. FRESCO AT ORVIETO 131 

SEGESTE 132 

SECUNDRA 134 

A ROMAN PEASANT 1 36 

" SINCE AS THE FLYING LEAVES WE ARE " 138 
"AMIDST OUR FRIENDS BESIDE THEIR LIVING 

EYES AND SPEECH" 1 39 

SELINONTO 141 

ONLY 143 

OASIS 145 

BEETHOVEN I46 

SNOW 147 

" AS THE SOUND OF THE BELL " 148 

NOR YES NOR NO 149 

"THERE IS NO NAME FOR IT, NO SOUND" 150 



MORNING 

Sweet fresh dawn that now is ours, 
Where may this new journey lead — 
How shall this day seem decreed 
At evening hours ? 

Within the space of tender grey 
One red cloud of sunset's hue 
Tells that night shall claim its due, 
At close of day. 



Guessed in your look 
A face beyond, above ; 
You were the book 
In which he learned to love : 

Held in your touch 
He dreamed the things unseen ; 
Sightless his eyes for such 
Had not your kindness been. 



Once as a bird in the hand 
Soft and near, 

You are flown to the vacant sky 
Which is blank and clear. 

Far hence it seems that I hear 
Your sad cry : 

And I walk in a darkening land 
Where memories die. 



BEFORE AND AFTER 

How will you seem 
Pale hours of mingled mist and light ? 
A tale, an omen ? echo, or a dream. 
Soft blindness or some further sight? 
Dust in the day's bright beam. 
Fire-flies across the sombre night, 
When the one hour stands high above your 
quivering gleam ? 

When the hour lives the summing up of all 

The dimly dreamed ; 

When in the dawn the voices to the voices 

call 
A clarion clearness where the mystery seemed : 
6 



BEFORE AND AFTER 7 

Pale hours that lead perchance to one high 

pulse supreme, 
Kind hours the last perchance before the 

shuddering fall — 
How will you seem ? 



GONE ABOVE TO HIS PLACE 

Mine was thy hand 
To go a little way ; 
I will not ever stand 
To mar thy day : 
Most kind to stay 
Awhile upon thy road ; 
I'll bear the after-load 
As best I may. 

Home is for such 
As thou, in lands apart ; 
Leave but a footprint's touch 
On this, my heart. 



GONE ABOVE TO HIS PLACE 

Gone, mists athwart, 

Far hence, who wast so near ; 

So far above, but dear 

As still thou art. 



He poured the vital roseate wine ; 
The chasings of the crystal cup 
Illumined as the wine rose up, 
Diamond to ruby, shape and line. 

It rose and quivered to the rim, 

It made the goblet's lip aglow : 

The crystal's finest atoms know 

The warmth and wealth that come from him. 



The dream was of a golden star 
Set in the night's unfathomed dome, 
It moved the spirit from its far 
Desire's home. 

Somewhere that lamp of light is set 
Beyond the mists that move between, 
And if it be not shining, yet 
The dream has been. 



II 



He called the breezes of the south 
To play upon the clustering hair, 
To linger on the roseate mouth 
Sweet sighs evoking there : 

Sighs in the soul, and fear, and all 
A host of fancy's shimmering lights ; 
Gleams in the dusk, when love-notes call 
Through perfumed sultry nights. 



We lingered on the stairs to see 

The close of day : 
You seemed too sweet and dear to me 

For words to say. 

We watched the moon rise up the pane, 

Close to a star : 
Ah — moments may not come again 

That perfect are. 



13 



The pathos of the passing year, 
The oft-repeated ever true 
Analogy, of death more near 
To me and you ; 

Enwraps us in a tender fear, 
Has filled the autumn day we see, 
And makes each passing moment dear 
To you and me. 



14 



PARTED 

So very little some might say, 
Yet just enough to part us twain : 
And we must follow each our way 
Nor hope to meet indeed again. 

Speak shall we ? Yes ; the words that know 
Scarce kindred with the very sweet 
Few words you spoke : and we shall grow 
More far apart each time we meet. 



'5 



LAST ECHOES 

Your hands no longer touch the keys, 
Your voice no longer fills the air, 

The room's the same, the flowers, the trees, 
Another sings the music there. 

Within the words you used to sing, 
Within the notes you used to play, 

A power is silent and they ring 
No more as once they did, to-day. 

And in the heart that beat so fast, 
That each one thing in you did prize, 

Is silence too ; and saddest, last. 
The tears are dry within the eyes, 
i6 



A THOUGHT 

The plumage of a bird, so white — 
One wave upon a moon-lit sea — 
Round as a pearl is to the sight — 
Fair as a sudden melody ; 

Dear is the thought : a breath, a glow, 
It moves amid the air of things — 
And ever closer, subtler, grow 
The mysteries of its communings. 



17 



I KNOW the wealth that decks the shrine, 
Each stately pier, each fine-cut gem ; 
And in the sky the diadem 
Of marble pinnacles a-shine : 

My eyes are rich in thought of them — 

Yet that which moves me through and through 
And that which holds my life in grip, 
Is neither mind nor heart nor lip ; 
But you, but you and you. 



i8 



All lives by death. So beats each heart ; 
The flowers that break the buds apart 
Reveal the year's recurrence : all 
Sweet songs in measure rise and fall. 

While far in space each golden sun 
Grows warm or cold, for rest is none. 



19 



It is the deep relentless stream 
Which holds us, if we will or nay, 
Greater than we. An hour, a day, 
A year, what matters ? All is dream. 

There waits the greater boundless sea 
Before us — hollow vale and crest — 
Foam to the stars — and on its breast 
We can alone contented be. 



Long years ago 

The great bronze bell 

Learnt the full voice 

Of that deep soul. 

We listen to its distant toll, 

And wonder, is there any choice 

To bid love come and hatred go ? 

It seems to tell 

Of places fair 

We have not seen 

And shall not see : 

The might have been that will not be, 



The memories that have not been, 
The wonders in the islands where 
Our journeys may not ever go. 



A HOUSE UNINHABITED 

For I had meant the garden's sweetness 
To pass through windows wide, 

That summer's wealth in rich completeness 
Should there within abide. 

And I had meant the breath of roses, 
To scent our house all through : 

But few things come as love proposes, 
And I was nought to you. 



23 



SOLITUDINES 

High in the branches, hear, a cry 
Repeated ; something living knows 
The terror that its life must die. 

Lives that we cannot touch — 
And we ourselves are such 
As those. 

The land has sunk below the sea, 
The long waves heave, the darkness grows ; 
One bird still tracks the ship, and we 
Watch the white emblem of ourselves. 



24 



The spirit wanders in the hills 
Which was your charm, your voice ; 
Still to the brim our fountain fills. 

Whose was the chance or choice ? 

And whence the change from choice or chance ? 

I mark but heartless years 

Dropping beneath the sunbeams' dance 

To fill the fount with tears. 



25 



IN THE OPEN 

How great the night, how still, how wide — 
Beneath the stars on every side. 

The trees, the fields, the woods are spread. 

Luxurious greatness, mighty rest — 
The earth is like a mother's breast 

Whereon may sleep life's weary head. 



26 



« UCCELLI CHE SONO IN MARE " 

Birds of the sea — Birds of the sea — 
On the air, to the sea, 
On the air — 
Souls of the dead — Gone from the land 
From the touch of the hand 
Going where ? 

Near you the surge, round you the sky, 
And the ships going by 
On their way. 
Round them the sea, near them the fate, 
Be it quick, be it late, 
As it may. 



27 



28 " UCCELLI CHE SONO IN MARE " 

Groves that you knew shine in the Hght 
Or are dim through the night 
Dewy wet. 
Hearts that have loved, loves that should live, 
Will forget and forgive. 
And forget. 



Was it ours that distant pain ? 
Quietness falls on stream and hill, 
Plenitudes of colour fill 
All the width of wood and plain. 

Thoughts we knew so harsh and weak, 
Wrought to chords profound and strong ; 
Changed into a breath of song, 
Words we could not bear to speak. 



29 



AT NIGHT 

They look within each other's eyes, 
The lake to star, the star to lake : 
And clouds that up the sky arise 
Keep still, abashed, for pity's sake. 

The mountains stand in silent praise ; 
No ripple mars the water's sheen : 
While such reunion night repays 
To those that daylight stood between. 



3° 



LECTORI SALVE 

Could one but know 
That as a tendril of a vine 
Suddenly the thought will grow — 
His dream from mine. 

Then winter's rest 
Of rugged stems that lifeless seem 
Were surely in its waiting blest — 
His life, my dream. 

His fancy shows 

Its moving tendril fresh and fine ; 
All shadowy our trellis grows — 
His dreams and mine. 
31 



II 



Homes of the soul, 
That seemed as though they were 
Waiting attuned for us to pass the gate 
When first we came, 
Homes of the soul — 
For us they seem to live, for us to wait, 
Once intimately felt and so eternally the 
same. 

Wide are the seas 

To traverse, and the plain 

Various, rich, before we pass the gate 

again, 
Move in again beneath the shadowy trees : 
35 



To hear once more 

The same chant sung, the same stream fall, 

To see the same light touch the glimmering 

wall, 
To feel the same thoughts come as years 

before ; 

And be ourselves the same, as though we 

dreamed 
The journeying hours, unreal now. 
That in their passage real seemed. 



36 



FEBRUARY 

About us fitful strangeness lay, 
As round the snowdrops lay the snow, 
That each night fell, but passed away 
Beneath the stronger sunlight's glow 
Each longer, almost springlike day. 

Till last the true spring came to dwell 
Radiant around each flower and leaf, 
And no more snowflakes ever fell — 
And strangeness, once so real a grief, 
Seems folly now we love so well. 



37 



TO A PICTURE 

" Oh, break into a smile and own 

That somewhere in some quiet place, 
There dwells a mirage of the face, 
The dearest I have ever known. 

" Nor seem remote with those kind eyes 
Ours never more can see and hold." 
The tender eyes were far and cold 
And saddened with a dim surprise. 



38 



UNA OUIDEM EST CONSOLATIO 

Safe from dragging of all loads — 
Safe from trailing of the feet — 

Could you tell on life's strange roads. 
What fate once you might not meet ? 

Eyes that none can fill with tears — 

Heart that nought can wring with pain — 

Peaceful through all troubled years, 
Sleeping, would you wake again ? 



39 



ANIMULA 

Fine tremulous flame, 

Alive within the chamber of my thought alone, 

Familiar still ; for all the outer world un- 
known — 

Forgotten features, voice unwritten, unre- 
membered name. 

Poor flickering glow — 

While yet the twilit chamber of my life is 

mine 
Held vital yet, since memory through the 

darkening shrine 
Moves with soft feet and murmurs thoughts 

that paler grow. 

40 



EARLY MARCH 

Wide and very pure and still 
Faint though clear by plain and hill 
Abides the tender wintry sky. 

No wind there is : a warmer ray 

Bids us call it Spring to-day 

And fancy " This day none should die." 

Very good to breathe and dwell, 
Live to-day : and yet most well 
Within so sweet an earth to lie. 

For both are one, the life, the death. 
All the world is filled with breath 
That pulses rich with melody. 
41 



THE RIFT IN THE LUTE 

" Fold, grey day, 
Your mantle grey, 
Of grey and rainful cloud ; 
Let every loud 
Wind hold away." 

But like a blast across the moor 
Came the cry of the weak and poor 
Between the night and day. 

" Break, brief leaf, 
To greenness brief, 
And brief bright summer's hour 
Of gleaming flower 
Rich golden sheaf." 
42 



THE RIFT IN THE LUTE 43 

But yet by branches green again 
Went forth a cry like trembling pain 
That shivered every leaf. 
And as a murmur through the grass 
Moved the feet of lives that pass 
To come not back again. 



You are not she : 

But notes within your utterance sound 

Like whispers that the air moves round 

From tree to tree. 

For all is hers — 

The tender voice of countless leaves, 
The murmuring of golden sheaves 
Or moonlit firs. 

She is no more 

Within my reach to love : and yet 
Her seal on all I love is set 
For evermore. 
44 



RAIN 

Sad heart, vexed spirit, how have you spent 

The day of the long chill rain. 
While the wind from the west with its wet 
blast went 

By the windows ever again ? 

I thought how seldom a heart draws nigh 
A heart to be loved and known ; 

How the wind and the rain and the human 
cry 
Sweep on through the world alone. 



45 



" I LOVE to take your hand and go 

Beneath blue skies : 
The reds of roses richer grow 

Beneath your eyes : 
I think I hardly knew a Spring, 

Till you were there : 
Or poise and dart of swallow's wing : 

You're everywhere." 

It seemed a pretty thing to say 

(I felt it too), 
You trembled and you looked away, 

I turned to you : 



46 



"But I'd be only in one place," 

You breathed and sighed, 
" Your heart." So weaker fancy's grace 

You thrust aside. 



47 



The house is just as stately ; fair 
Its gardens, and the trees have grown 
Yet higher, nobler : she alone 
Is absent, vanished, that was there. 

Yet all the rooms are sweet and still. 
Rich too with scent as then of flowers 
Whose radiance fading marks the hours 
In vases that she used to fill. 

While summer clouds sweep on above 
And in the gardens thrushes sing — 
There wants but yet one other thing, 
The human voice I used to love. 
48 

■:^ 



The day was perfect, and the perfect blue 
Of sky unbroken by one shred of cloud, 
The drowsy earth seemed like a sleeper 
bowed, 

The old Hall silent with its grove of yew. 

We stepped inside a chamber where we knew 
A picture hung of which the house was proud, 
By Francia, in a room where never loud 

Voice came and looking where the lilies grew. 

Its mellow sky was tender, white and dim. 
Behind the bending of Madonna's head. 
And seemed to bless the faintly broken 
plain. 
D 49 



And there we saw how it had seemed to him 
Who wrought this picture. Whence such 
light was shed 
As made that day grow twice more fair 
again. 



5° 



ECHOES 

The world seems not the world, although 

This brook is real and past its bed 

Across a wide dun field I go, 

And know 

Its crop is harvested. 

My soul's apart in other years 
Gone on before in some dim place, 
Or dreads new life that nought endears 
And fears 
There not to see one face. 

The world is strange and blankly fair. 
I think it seems as it would be 

51 



52 ECHOES 

If you breathed not the moving air, 

Or were 

Not ever dear to me. 



SOUVENIR DUN AMI 

Pink fragile rose, whose petals pale 
Grow fainter ever as they leave 
Thy central depths and seem to grieve 

That they are blanched, that they are frail. 

Some poet named thee, made thee speak 
The sorrow that a friend must bear, 
Who feels the memories that were 

Most strong and present, pale and weak. 



53 



SEPTEMBER 

All the air is warm and still, 
All our garden yet is bright, 
Nor any day at summer's height 
Did ever richer glory fill. 

All the scents are full and sweet ; 
Where our arboured path is green, 
Just one leaf falls down between 
The passage of our moving feet. 

Ah, I think your finer sense 
Feels some touch on you or me, 
To tell how winter soon will be. 
Now summer, smiling, passes hence. 

54 



The autumn dies ; the haunting snow 
Foretells its coming through the air : 
The field, the forest, seem to know 
That soon it will be lying there. 

Is such grey shade 

The change definitive, to-day ? 

So many days have light and darkness made, 

Is this day not as they ? 



55 



Thus 1 would have it. You should be 
The master of the ancient place, 
And I your guest. Young still the face, 
The firelight shows it keen and free. 

Fresh from our ride athwart the breeze 
We linger in the darkening hall ; 
The rooks come home, a call, a call — 
Then all is silence in the trees. 



56 



NOVEMBER 

The silver lights of dawn remain 
On past the noon to evening's hour, 
The shifting mist returns again, 
And slowly night resumes its power. 

The pallid light, the chilly air 
Seem almost human, faint and brief. 
Yet scarcely sad : as though there were 
An inner peace within this grief. 



57 



The twilight's gradual deepening, 

The shrinking day ; 

A hall wherein pale echoes sing 

And dead harps play ; 

Where suddenly upon the pane a wing 

Strikes and is gone, and all the sky is grey. 



S8 



DECEMBER 

Close the mist is brooding round, 
The trees are great, remote and pale, 

Mysterious worlds in which the frail 
Thoughts die, and every muffled sound 
Cowers to silence blank and far. 

Where is certain love or trust ? 

Where the gaze of eyes that quite 

Move out to ours, whose truest sight 

Would dare acknowledge how we must, 
Should be, simply what we are ? 



59 



6o DECEMBER 

All are lonely ; not one heart 
Beats atune and all at one 

With other hearts, and almost none 
Live, that do not live apart. 



A LILT of words is in the ear, 
Call, spirit, call to distant things 
To draw them with desire near. 

The air is full of living wings — 
A music in the whole world sings. 
The writing on the page is here. 



6i 



Ill 



IN THE BREEZE 

Blue eyes to the space of the sea — 
Gold hair to the corn of the land — 
Oh eyes drawn to the love to be, 
Hair so soft in palm of the hand — 

White foam give birth to new love, 
Change turn into love in our sight — 
Oh corn, corn, the great sun is above- 
Ripen, break to touch of his light. 

Red flowers that grow in the corn, 
Death's voice and the corn between, 
Oh make gift to the love new-born, 
Kill all pain that ever has been. 
E 65 



Mirror high set and silent as a star, 
Dead diamond, moonstone, vague mysterious 
gem. 
Aloof from images of things and yet alive by 
reason of the life in them. 

Faces and flowers, laughter and tears, they 

are ; 
But you the mirage temple where they all 
In long procession pass and all merge and 
emergre to music of oblivion's call. 



66 



You raise a child up for a while 
To see the outer passing things : 
You watch its face, each object brings 
A look, and so a frown or smile. 

Life calls its creatures for a span 
Whole worlds to see and seem to know 
The changeful pale perceptions grow 
And fade across the face of man. 



67 



EVENING RAIN 

The first sharp rain-drops touch one chosen 
leaf, 
The dust lies dense upon the straight high- 
way ; 
Beneath the closing vaults of leaden 
grey 
The earth is sleepy as in weary grief: 
Ah, life is dull, we think, and yet too 
brief — 
While on the floor that those clouds build 

there may 
Be starbeams dancing, airy sprites a-sway, 
A moving band of whom the moon is 
chief. 

68 



EVENING RAIN 69 

And up above our weariness there dwell 

Stars of high thought and moonbeams of 

desire, 
That tread the clouds and dance with feet 
a-fire ; 
And bid us whisper " All might yet be well 
If but our hands could never fail or tire 
To strike the chords and sweep the spirit's 
lyre." 



IN THE VINEYARDS 

We could not see the singer of our song, 
Fresh from the earth among the vines it rose ; 
Young was the voice, the young man's voice, 
and strong. 

Thus from the stem the vine's new vigour 

shows 
New flight of impulse to the year's new sun — 
The cadence slackens and the singer goes — 

May love await him now his work is done. 



70 



HER LOVE 

You judge him if you like. Ask why 
" Bears he himself with that hard frown, 

Goes upward treading others down ? " 
But always I 

Desire his unbaulked demand 

And love to feel within his hand 

My fingers crushed until I cry. 

About me goes the world and all 

Its business, pleasure ; and I take 
My share within them for one sake, 

Which is to fall 
Prone at his feet and lay all there, 
The wealth of all the gifts that were 
His always all. 
71 



THE JUDGE 

There you lie dead, whom all men deemed 

me hating. 
Who measures love save by his own behest ? 
Must Angels stand unmoved to doom's abating? 
Surely your sin might ask a little rest. 

You are gone hence, gone hence to your 

requiting. 
Oh, were I judge, high judge, to set you free — 
Mine is the sword that justice asks for smiting, 
Be it not false that you so injured me. 

If mine the wrong, then why not mine forgiving ? 

Yours was the fall, then mine the hand to raise. 

72 



THE JUDGE ji 

I am the one to smooth your paths of living. 
Who else can judge what only I appraise ? 

Yes, side by side we'll stand for our defending. 
I'll keep erect and hold you while they speak. 
Rest till I come, your knight of pity's sending, 
Am I not strong and you so very weak ? 



TWENTY TO THIRTY 

Think you my smile 

Is fashioned so for you, 

Should I seem vile 

If you my secrets knew? 

Your presence through 

(But sweet is love's defile), 

Like travellers do 

I look beyond, awhile. 

Dwelt you once set 

Bright jewel in a soul ? 

Are your eyes wet 

With tears for love once whole ? 



74 



TWENTY TO THIRTY 75 

Raise then the bowl, 
And beckon to me yet — 
Love I'll cajole, 
And love shall you forget. 



PRESENTIMENT 

She sat and looked upon her fair white hands, 
Warm in the firelight as the day grew dull, 
She had not stepped apart from God's 
commands, 
There came no memory which she need 
annul. 

Pure hands, whose fingers had not wrought 
one wrong — 
Wherefore the sadness of the eyes' fixed 
look ? — 
Within the twilight rose the clouds in throng. 
And leafless branches in the weird wind 
shook, 

76 



Boy's love ! unconscious speaking of a rhyme, 
First childish humming of love's untaught 
lay; 

Shall this die out within the fresh spring time, 
Accounted pretty and so fade away ? 

It seems the lifting of a calm warm sea^ 

Closed by long islands from the ocean's main ; 

And in a boat that passes glidingly, 

One dips her hand in it, and smiles again. 



77 



MOSAIC 

Within the dome of sombre chastened gold 
Through deep-set windows from a far blue 

sky 
The rays descend, in golden shades to 
die, 
In glowing quietude mellowed deep and 

old. 
Figured are there the saints whose hands 
still hold 
The emblems of the toil and pain gone 

by, 

Who stand by Christ to hear each sorrow's 
cry 
The endless murmur of men's griefs untold. 
78 



MOSAIC 79 

But small bright star-flowers grow around the 
feet 
That walked the path of holiness and pain, 
Sweet to the soul with consolation's 
voice ; 
And fair-leaved palms arched up above them 
meet, 
As if the saints might love the shade again, 
Where once they rested on their path of 
choice. 



BY THE WINDOW 

Not worthy am I yet to feel 
The touch of hands so strong, so true : 
And as from nights most clear and deep 
We turn and sigh, move in and sleep, 
So turn my eyes away from you. 

Oh, could a mist but upwards steal 
(The mist that glides all down the mead) 
To veil the calm, intenser space, 
And hide the eyes in heaven's face : 
Oh then were we more near indeed. 



80 



BETWEEN THE DANCES 

We are friends ; the music's woken, 
Round us shines the polished floor. 

Strange to feel there must be spoken 
One last word, and then no more. 

It may be your smile's now greeting 
That small word ; nor have we known 

How its sound shall end our meeting, 
When all steps are moved alone. 



Cold words you spoke, some chance you failed 

To take as you would take it now 

To please me : have these so prevailed, 

That all the rest has shrunk and paled ? 

I neither hear nor mark them now. 

But in this fuller union's light 

That now is ours as we are now, 
A sorrow rises : for I might 
Have stood so blameless in your sight, 
Had I been then as I am now. 



82 



A FACE 

I SEEM to see the end 

Revealed before me, momentwise. 
The smiles of light no more defend 

That hollowness of eyes. 

I seem to see his face 

As it will be when hope is dim — 
Surely no other will replace 

What we have found in him ? 



83 



PALE GOLD 

Nothing in you perfect, rounded — 
Golden hair that seems too pale, 
Form too slight, and eyes soon sounded 
Where the flashes quickly fail. 

Still we love you through your being 

Full of music's broken airs, 

And a nature's unforeseeing 

Of our tedious whys and wheres. 

As a little moss-born river 
Humming flows beneath the grass, 
You can make a man's heart quiver, 
When your lightsome footsteps pass. 
84 



We parted and I took my fill 

Of eyes and all the lines of face ; 

And thought " I'll hold it come what will, 
In any place 
Of all world's space." 

We parted — and a voice grew clear, 

As clear as streams no weeds defile, 
" Be thankful that your friend was here, 

A little while 

With friendship's smile." 

We parted — but we met again, 
Yes, often. Till as morning grew 
85 



One day through showers of autumn rain 

I woke and knew 

No thought of you : 
But you had passed from joy and pain. 



86 



AT PALERMO 

Held in the breeze the orange branches move. 

I stand beside the turquoise sapphire sea 
And wish that I could cease to think of thee, 
My far half-love ! 

But for the half-smile of your faint pale flower, 

In summer garden rich with deep content 
I had been now perchance ; there others went, 
Each in his hour. 

Time was it then for flight to Southern sun. 
They went the others southward on desire ; 
Home waited there beneath the fuller fire 
For everyone. 
87 



88 AT PALERMO 

But under rustle of those wings above, 

To love to think the half-smile if I may, 
Whole summer's smile of sunny livelong day ; 
Is that not love ? 



IN A BALL-ROOM 

They met that evening and they spoke 
A few words linked by chance, 

When vioHns with a sigh awoke 
The air to bid us dance. 

He watched the grace that could but win 

The eyes, the even breath ; 
And felt the power of soul within — 

They parted until death. 

They parted — but she bore his face, 
The high, the brave, the clear, 

Where'er she went in every place. 
It made the good more dear. 
89 



90 IN A BALL-ROOM 

For they were fashioned so to be 
Each for the other quite 

Complete. And neither he nor she 
Knew love, the true, the right. 



Alone? — Within my fingers seem 
Enclosed your nervous tender hands, 
The solitude becomes the dream 
And near and true the presence stands. 

Together? — If a dream can throw 
Warm colour on the pallid eyes, 
Perchance a moment ; till we know 
The mockery of paradise. 



91 



SPRING 

All's returning, all is burning, all is clear — 
All seems hopeful, bright in yearning, 
But we are sad for unreturning 
Of what was dear. 

Spring is tender, spring will render all things 
fair — 
Earth now makes her bride's surrender, 
Only to the griefs not tender, 
That we must bear. 

We are broken, by sure token, from the Spring ; 
Since of all the birds awoken 
Not ever one whose wing is broken 
Will fly and sing. 
92 



TRIVIA 

Mortem morituri salutamus — 

It came, which was the man unknown, 

like us. 
(Each hour the many live, the dead are 

few — ). 
There moved a stillness through the 

crowd and hum — 
(Hats raised and horses reined — ) the 

mystery grew 
A moment near, then passed upon its way. 
Morituri te 
Salutamus mortuum. 



93 



We two have known each other, 
By touch of mind and heart ; 

What is it yet, my brother, 
That holds us still apart ? 

Is it the self-prevailing 

In strength of thought and breath ? 
Or vision of the failing, 

And end of all in death ? 



94 



ALONE 

We passed an Island of the tropic sea, 

Aflame and throbbing to the noon-day sun, 
Hot, lonely rocks, where never once will 
run 

The feet of children, lovers' footsteps be. 

No leaf grew on it, not a flower. No tree 
Had risen there and breaking upwards won 
Its crown of glory, no kind act been done 

Within its borders. It was lonely, free. 

Our deck swirled past it with the awning 
spread, 
Bright dresses clustering as a bed of flowers 
Set in a garden that a fresh air sweeps. 
95 



96 ALONE 

But it lies, ever solitary, dead : 

With foam around it in tempestuous hours, 
Or thralled in silence when the ocean sleeps. 



AT BAYREUTH 

Let them gather here all those who have never 
Touched with their lips the lips they prize ; 
Those whom the years as they vanish will 
sever 
Further away from the face and eyes 
That they fain would see. 

Let them gather here when lights are made 
lower, 
Violins pant in dead dark air, 
Wake with a laugh, and then fail and are 
slower, 
Telling the tale that is true all where 
By a great decree. 
G 97 



98 AT BAYREUTH 

Let them gather here and sing with the 
singing, 
Float on the storm of love and song, 
Clasp the dear form in a dream that is 
bringing 
Lips to their lips that have waited long 
For the kiss to be. 

While without the firs in the star-lit night 
Stand with a murmur of wind in each bough 

Where the ground is crisp to the passing feet, 

And the scented boughs enlace and meet, 
Meet so close as to scarce allow 

A glimpse of the sky where the stars are 
brig-ht. 



THE MOSLEM'S TOMB 

The tomb is set in gardens where deep space 
Of leaves and shade beside the marble ways 
That edge the pool, bore flowers for all the 
days 

Throughout the years of all his life, whose place 
For pleasure this was once. His living face 
Caught here the smile of friends ; and 

while the blaze 
Of sun lay scorching on the plains, a maze 

Of foliage closed around the marble's grace. 

This was his pleasure house in life. At last 
The guests unwittingly his latest passed 
The splendid gate that he re-entered dead. 
99 



lOO THE MOSLEM'S TOMB 

And now amid the gardens by the pool, 
The tomb stands softly gleaming, shaded, cool, 
Like calm quiescence that repels all dread. 



MURANO 

Some say that it was poisoned wine 
Red in the glass beyond compare — 
Fine was the glass, its lip most fine ; 
The red lips touched it quivering there. 

And now the eyes have peace, for they 
Have seen the vision, the desired — 
Rich grows the closing of the day — 
Row to the sunset, life is tired. 



HEIMWEH 

The words stand written ; but our hearts 
return 
To that unshapen misty sense we knew, 
And homewards thither from the sound we 
yearn 
Towards the hours wherein the passion 
grew. 

Shall there be one unspeaking of all speech, 
Fresh with the freedom of a wide pure 
sea, 
Like mighty sudden wave-wash on the beach 
That drowns the footmarks, leaves the 
broad sands free ? 



A MIRROR 

Faded and dim 

I cannot live but dreaming now : 

The lines of gold which are my carven rim 

Of honey seem and gold-dust, pale and old. 

And when the light 

Strikes on my face it makes strange hues 
Of dance that dies, and all the balmy night 
Faintly the tapers flicker in my eyes. 

And all the night 
Sweet and persistent sings a song, 
Most dear refrain, across my shadowy sight ; 
" Life was and is not, is and is again.' 
103 



BY THE SHORE 

Pure and calm the fir trees stand 
Each in commune with a star, 
And the snow is stretching far, 
Veiling all the silent land. 
All the forest, to the shore. 

Snow of foam and foam of snow 
Leave a sandy narrow strip. 
Touch from touch and lip from lip 
Failing, sundered ever so ; 

While the stars grow more and more. 



104 



IV 



VISHNU 

" Oh Vishnu, hear us, for the sky is thine — 
Have pity soon and our blank hunger 

fill. 
For ever on thy sacred altar will 
The fruits lie glowing and the sweet flowers 

shine." 
The crowd moves thickly, and the placid 
kine 
Pace the broad halls where bats are 

crying shrill : 
Harsh music screams and deep green tanks 
lie still 
And wide courts shadeless round the close- 
walled shrine. 

107 



io8 VISHNU 

There all is silent, and the God alone 

In dense air weighted with the flowers those 

bring 
Who seek some easing of their evil day : 

While on the oil-stained surface of the stone 
A bright blue insect with its airy wing 
Lights for a moment and then flies away. 



BY THE BULWARKS 

The water's all around us both, wind swept 
on every side, 

Its hidden depths beneath us shroud the secret 
of the tide : 

And our ship moves heaving onwards, labour- 
ing slowly on, 

And the world moves on for ever. But we 
shall die anon. 

Cease to be friends, no longer near a heart, a 

voice, a hand : 
Tossed ever on the mighty waste, apart from 

home and land. 



109 



We have two moods, two visions, if we will. 
The one to see immensity in greatness and 

to say : 
" Vain pride, be still, 
A speck is man, a moment all his living day." 

But with the other in each grain of sand 
Again to see immensity in smallness, and to 

know 
How high we stand 
Who breathe and live and from the sand did 

slowly grow. 



no 



IN THE PARTHENON 

Upgathered strength of hours and hours- 
One hour of man's long day is whole, 
Like scent of all a garden's flowers 
Enshrined within one marble bowl. 

So gained, a ridge that cuts the sky — 
So heard a note that crowns the song — 
Let then the feeble ages die 
If but one hour be true and strong. 



Ill 



IN THE LUXEMBOURG 

He dances, he dances — 

Sweet solemn garden of the quieter way, 

Proud heart of France — 

He dances, he dances, night and day, 

Bronze shapely faun, all life's entrancing dance. 

He dances, he dances — 
By lime trees flowering, or by opal grey 
Pale rosy fadings of the frosty day. 
Spirit of fine delight, he dances — 
Dear heart of France, he dances, gay. 



112 



To fretful man one single speech have all 
Those myriad stars : but that how clear, how 

great — 
" Be still before our eyes," their voices call, 
" And to each other generous ; for hate 
Is small ; and we should be like lamps you 

set 
In gardens at fair festivals to light 
On from the halls of dance, to groves where 

yet 
A deeper beauty fills the silent night." 



H 113 



Some weep for common things, 

Hunger and pain ; 

To them no music ever sings, 

To them the sweet air never brings 

One fancy's strain. 

Some, free to mark each touch. 

Each mood that grows, 

Are drawn to seek too far, too much; 

And grieve for failure. Grieve with such, 

But pity those. 



114 



THE PLANTATION. 

The valley's space was chill and dead, 
Night passed to day : 
The coming of the rains had spread 
The sky with grey. 

A trumpet struck against the air 
Its lonely stroke ; 
The labourers who sleeping were 
To toil awoke. 



"5 



HUMAYOUN 

The library is finished, set high up with four 
Clear arches for the air's pure feathery wings 
To pass, and day no dust or tumult brings 

But colours merely glow and shine the more. 

Within the corners rich with wisdom's store 
The sage gives knowledge and the poet 

sings, 
Nor fitter roof for silent communings 

Has ever arched a cool and marble floor. 

Revolving was it those dear hours to be 

Here in the converse of the true, the strong. 
That he, the Emperor, slipped upon the 
stair ? 

ii6 



HUMAYOUN 117 

What had he seen that he might never see 
Had he remained amidst the city's throng 
Nor sought the tempting stillness that 
was there. 



Let me pass in and by your side 

Watch in the chamber that your sorrow knows. 

Night reigns as yet, 

Not yet the grey, a breath before the rose. 

Thus the long hours may seem less long, 
Sadness less sad, since two must bear it, less. 
While near to us 
Gather pale hopes that neither dared to guess. 



ii8 



KWANNON 

The figure, dark beneath the niche's golden 

roof, 
Dwells in its deep seclusion, tender yet most 

far aloof — 
The carven forms are writing of the peace 

divine — 
And music of all peace the shapings of the 

deepening shrine. 

Kwannon the merciful, guardian of life's further 

ways, 
We come towards you from the burden of the 

streets and days. 



119 



I20 KWANNON 

Since you are powerful, by the power 
Of nobler passion to release 
From baser passion's evil hour ; 
Since you are merciful, by kindness, to your 
peace. 



In that a shadow seemed to pass 
Across the mirror's polished sheen, 
Lurks there a shade within the glass 
Because that passing shade has been ? 

It holds the power to mirror still 
A cloud, a flower, the star, the smile ; 
Draw but a curtain if you will 
Before it, let it rest awhile. 



COGNITIO 

White soul, be blessed of me, although 
Words scarcely reach your wildered sense, 
For torches of red passion go 
A-dance around your innocence. 

White figure in their midst, the moon 
Touches each tender shuddering line ; 
A mist to be, a nothing soon — 
And so at last entirely mine. 



AT CAIRO 

Here would I wish my friend to stand, 
In Hasan's mosque, when I am dead. 
The heat sinks down on all the land, 
Mellow the sky grows overhead. 

The four great arches hold the shade 
Recessful for the peace of prayer. 
And round the court most nobly made 
Great letters speak God everywhere. 

All should he see, as I now see 
Arches and sky and carven writ ; 
Then, as a chance, some thought of me 
Should come, as his eyes rest on it. 
123 



PROCESSIONAL 

Clear on my heart I thought love stamped 

its sign, 
Until one spoke who said : " Dark knots 

entwine 
Your heart." Then love or hatred which is 

mine ? 

And I, what am I ? I, this thing called I ? 
The rocks cast back the whirring useless cry. 

Let us pass on and leave this struggling 

thing, 
This battling thing, which is the tangled 

puzzling 

124 



PROCESSIONAL 125 

Of " what am I." Let silence come. We 

bring 
Our best to deck the shrine, our utmost 

offering. 



AEOLIAN 

Harp that dead hands in the deep garden 

hung, 
Whose are the shudderings of your sobs and 

cries ? 
The long night through your helpless strings 

have rung 
Racked by the wind beneath the mad moon's 

eyes. 

Echo you hold of nameless dead regret ; 
And our pain too will sometime come to be 
Part of your helpless painless pain, and yet 
To us it seems the world's one threnody. 



126 



The opal's world of tender greys — 

(Long starlit nights and fair succeeding days)- 

A casual turn 

Shows where the hidden lightnings burn. 

Cruel can those be who gentle are — 

(No smile to-day, to-night no liquid star) — 

Such opaline 

Strange gem of change is yours and mine. 



127 



LONDON, 1883 

The dusty western sky is red 
With fragments of earth's vital fire, 
It seems a breathing of the dead 
And shred of drifting dead desire. 

Wide glory turns this quivering dust 
To splendour which our eyes possess. 
Content ; since life and love and lust 
All must transform to shapelessness. 



128 



O MAY the gods forgive us, that we prize 
Beyond the spring and summer of all things 
One single life, that in our eyes 
One beauty thrones, that all the rest above 
One accent sings. 

They will forgive us surely, since the whole 
Wide realm is theirs to love, as we each love 
That single thing, the spring of each man's 
life and soul. 



i2g 



MADRIGAL 

Love came to them with music fraught 
Borne on the summer air unsought, 
More sweet than hope, more keen than thought ; 
And slew each baser pain. 

So perfect was the golden cup 
Their clasped hands lifted trembling up, 
To drink the wine within the cup ; 
On lips with longing fain — 

O love, come then and gently sing 
How dim death lurks in everything, 
That even thou canst never bring 
High joy to these again. 
130 



A POET. FRESCO AT ORVIETO 

The page half-written and the half-page 

white — 
Untouched beneath his hand the rest he knows 
Are blank unwritten still and spotless quite. 
How shape the verses and the tale of those ? 

A breath upon his shoulder, and he turns 
There to the window, and so comes to see 
Sun blazing, while his thought so feebly burns : 
He shuts the book contented. It will be. 



131 



SEGESTE 

Temple of the stately pillars, temple with the 

spacious gaze — 
Never made complete for worship, never made 

the home of praise — 

He, perhaps, whose mind had formed you, saw 

you as you should have been 
With the shrine amidst the pillars that the 

God might pass between. 

Little knew he that his handcraft, thus un- 
finished, would outlast 

Other works of crowned completion, signal of 
his people's past. 

132 



SEGESTE 133 

Signal of a note of living, straight regarding, 

high and free, 
With its pride of Greek perfection and its gaze 

on hill and sea. 



SECUNDRA 

Still as a dead man's breath, 
The heat of the day, nor soon 

Will its power abate. 
And wide with the width of death. 
The path that leads to the tomb 

Of Akbar the Great — 

High seen many a mile. 

By plains wide, dusty and pale. 

The tomb in its might — 
Where deep in the haughty pile 
The heats all shiver and fail 

As in winter night. 

134 



SECUNDRY I3S 

There's the place where he Hes 
Dim chamber spacious and grey 
And lit by one ray. 

But up in the blue of the skies, 

High in the blaze of the day, 

Is a courtyard sunny and clear, 

Bordered with marble as fine as lace, 

Paved with a floor that the angels might pace, 

Might tread with feet unshod, 

Looking with angels' eyes 

By the bright false tomb that is here. 

Looking to see the Koh-i-noor shine, 

The great, proud stone that was, Akbar, thine, 

Till thou wentest from it to God. 



A ROMAN PEASANT 

There lurks within his sultry depths of eyes 
A vague remembrance of forgotten thought, 
Reflection there of deeds his fathers 
wrought, 
Triumphal stillness like his Roman skies. 
For very slowly ancient wonder dies 

From nations' veins, and his perchance 

are fraught 
With mantling blood of one whom sages 
taught 
The Grecian wisdom, with all Rome his prize. 

Dominion, knowledge, pride and pomp of state, 
Move in procession, mingle into dust, 
136 



A ROMAN PEASANT 137 

Leaving their relics on the weary plain ; 
And eyes like his. But life is prouder, great, 
Most persevering, though expire it must 
By very strength, to wake elsewhere again. 



Since as the flying leaves we are 
Caught from the earth's warm breast, 
Wrecks on the wind, that hurried far 
Fly on from home and rest : 

Lean back upon the wind, poor leaves, 
A chant is in its breath, 
With power to drown the note that grieves 
For pathos of your death. 



138 



Amidst our friends beside their living eyes 
and speech, 
There comes the presence of some far 
unvoiceful place : 
And half in dread and half in strange desire, 
reach 
Our souls towards that solitary silent 
space. 

And when we live where solitude unbroken 
dwells, 
Pulsation beats within the air, and round 
us sing 



139 



Strange melodies unformed and broken chimes 
of bells, 
As though the wind half held dim sounds 
it could not bring. 



140 



SELINONTO 

At Selinonto where the city stood, 

The pillars sleep like rocks in silent rest, 
For Nature gathers to her flowery breast 

The pageant of the temples' goodlihood. 

Hardly a sign to mark another mood 

From her proud stillness ; scarcely had 

we guessed 
That fair and bright with sacred garlands 
dressed, 

All white and blue and red, the temples stood. 

These stones are like tired faces whence has fled 
The touch of youth and life, which all but 
dead, 

141 



142 SELINONTO 

Hold yet some sign of human use and 
grace. 
Above the sky spreads wide its calm decree, 
While past the ruins down the sapphire sea, 
Keen to the westward maned white horses 
race. 



ONLY 

As a flower on a river's 

Sharp eddying whirls : 

As a red leaf that shivers 

And shuddering twirls 

To the ground : so are we in our way. 

Save that only a dreaming, 

A heaven-sent pride, 

Makes us each in the seeming 

Of truth, set aside 

His own life : so are we not as they. 

That " only " and therefore 
All strength of desire, 
143 



144 ONLY 

Of the hope, and the wherefore 

Each soul is a-fire 

And all love in their fashion and day. 



OASIS 

You watch as I do that full fountain there. 
The sky is rainless and the white clouds pass, 
The rocks are burning, the wide earth is bare, 
Here only are there flowers and fresh-hued grass. 

Surely now somewhere in some distant place 
The rain is falling with its rustling sound, 
And lulled in ecstasy of sky-fed grace 
The grasses whisper to the moistened ground. 

And thence amid mountains, 
That so arid seem. 
Flow on the fountains 

And so dreamers dream. 

K 145 



BEETHOVEN 

A MASS of mighty chords in strength, 
Aroused from Aeons' slumber deep, 
As though upon a world of sleep 
The voice creative moved at length. 

Transfusing tender pure and strong 
Melodious voice — and all around 
In undertones the torrents' sound 
Expands the high sustained song. 

And as we listen throne on throne 
The shadowed mountains sombre grow, 
And sunset splendour lights the snow 
On heights that dwell apart, alone. 
146 



SNOW 

The snow enwraps the silent land, 
The earth is white, the sky is grey. 
Bright tho' sunless seems the day, 

Silent as a desert sand. 

Neither moves a breath of air, 
Labour ceases, birds are still : 
Is it then the snow that will 

Shroud us too who living were ? 

Wrap us round and make to pass 
All our tumult and our pain ; 
Vexed not evermore again 

Hidden as to-day the grass ? 
147 



As the sound of the bell 

Of a flock on the hills 

In a moist cool land ; 

As the depth of a well 

That a sure spring fills 

Through a white clean sand ; 

So is the voice that I faintly hear. 



148 



NOR YES NOR NO 

He was no bearer of the torch 
Nor caught by any God-sent flame ; 
No prophet in the temple's porch : 
Nor worthy of a poet's name, 
For praise or blame. 

Merely one awoke from sleep 
Come to wonder how the day 
May be, will be ; and to creep 
Through the darkness, draw away 
Curtains that the darkness keep : 
So to see the morning's grey 
Fill a valley broad and deep. 

149 



There is no name for it, no sound. 
It is beyond our life, our death ; 
More tender than the softest breath 
In meadows where sweet flowers abound ; 
More solemn than the breakers' strength 
When tempests catch their crested length 
And surging drag the stricken ground : 

There is no sound for it, no name. 



150 



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